Reach Out and Zap Someone

Reach Out and Zap Someone: The Patent History of Electric Stun Weapons
 
Zaap…zaaap-clack-clack-clack…zaaap. Just the sound and spark of an electric weapon triggers something from childhood that makes you step back when you see and hear the electricity arc through the air between the leads. The two most common forms of today’s electric "stun" technology, […]

The Cane as a Weapon (1912)

In 1912, A.C. Cunningham published The Cane as a Weapon, which even today remains the best book I have ever seen on fighting with a cane. It is amazingly succinct and conveys what is as nearly a complete system of cane fighting as a reader could desire, all within 25 pages.

“Physical Culture and Self Defense” by Fitzsimmons (1901)

Our indefatigable friend Kirk Lawson recently finished transcribing another martial classic. This one was on my list, but he saved me the trouble with this faithful reproduction. Here’s his description:

As with all other retranscribed antique manuals that I republish, the text is available for free. You can download it at no charge. The treeware version […]

The Chopper: The Pugilist’s Backfist

The backfist, and by that I mean the direct backfist, not the spinning one, often gets a bad rap. Many view it as a technique that is useful for TKD practitioners to get a quick point in tournaments, but one that has little value otherwise. Boxers and kickboxers are particularly skeptical of its effectiveness because […]

Jujutsu Humor

Another brief installment of jiu-jitsu humor from the Washington Post, 1-24-1905.
 An Experiment in Jiu Jitsu.
From the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
When a footpad approaches you, seze him by the center of the arm and press your thumb violently against a nerve in the inner elbow joint. The footpad will then probably shoot five bulletholes in you while […]

Early Civilian Western Martial Arts

The following roundup represents a group that goes together in my head as Civilian/Self-Defense Martial Arts in the late Renaissance to early-Victorian eras. I chose to keep boxing manuals separate, because they are generally later than these manuals.
Johann Georg Passchen’s Vollstandiges Ring-buch (1659). These other versions are probably based on Eli Steenput’s translation:

HACA

AEMMA

Nicolaes Petter’s Clear […]

Paper Bludgeon: the Millwall Brick

The other day I read a post on Boing Boing about constructing the Millwall Brick, which is the first I had heard of it. The Millwall (or Chelsea) Brick is an improvised weapon constructed out of rolled and folded newspaper.
The history behind the Milwall Brick is that football (soccer) hooligans, frisked at the gates, were […]

Dealing with Footpads

I came across this a number of years ago and found it amusing because you see the same discussions today with keyboard self-defense experts describing how they would dismantle hypothetical attackers with their favorite techniques.
This piece was originally printed in the April 28, 1900 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle (p.14). I added the emphasis […]